Featured Issue: Internal Control

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Effective internal control over financial reporting is intended to provide reasonable assurance about the reliability of a company's financial statements and the process of preparation of those statements.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as amended by the Dodd-Frank Act, requires management of all companies to assess and report on the effectiveness of the company's internal control over its financial reporting. The law also requires that independent auditors for larger companies attest to management's disclosures about the effectiveness of that internal control. Under the amendments to SOX by the Dodd-Frank Act, certain smaller companies, known as "non-accelerated filers," are exempted from the requirement for an external audit of internal control over financial reporting. However, these smaller companies, which typically have common equity held by non-insiders of less than $75 million, must still provide annually management’s assessment of internal controls.